Full-time MBA Blog

Tuesday December 7^th was the last day of class. As I look back on this semester, I realize how quickly time flies.  I cannot believe that technically 25% of my MBA is now almost complete. I am starting to understand the MBA2s that say that 2 years is a really short time, and that we must maximize every moment.  I feel like I just arrived here, yet as I look back a lot has happened in this short period of time.  Here are my top 5 lessons:

1. I now feel more comfortable reading financial statements.

The first time that I took financial accounting and reporting in my undergrad, I didn’t know what was going on. I just did the mechanics of the class, not really understanding why and what I was doing.  However, after working a couple of years, I can now see the light! While I will never be a pro at Statistics or Firms & Markets (microeconomics), classes are taught in a way that make you understand where they might be applicable to the working world – and that is invaluable.

2. I know what I don’t want to do with my life – for the moment.

A huge theme that was mentioned during Launch (our introduction to Stern) was “Exploring”. Part of this journey is about embracing the unexpected, connecting and talking with people in ‘random’ fields. But most importantly pushing and questioning yourself, past your usual boundaries. This is obviously not comfortable, and I feel like I have been on a rollercoaster for the past three months. However now, I have some potential careers crossed off my list, I have some that I have added onto my list, and I am curious to see what I will learn next semester.

3. It gets really busy.

When we started the semester, all the MBA2s kept advising us to enjoy the moment, and not to overcommit to too many things, as we would get really busy.  Of course, we didn’t know what they meant by ‘busy’.  Starting October, we were all suddenly overwhelmed with midterms, corporate presentations, coffee chats, prep sessions – the works. I have always thrived in chaos, but even I had moments where I felt truly overwhelmed. I think that we grow as much from the actual classes, as from the daily decisions that we need to make when it comes to managing our time and commitments.

4. Take a deep breath.

In all this ‘madness’, it is still very important to take time for ourselves.  There were always more corporate presentations, classes, meetings, and happy hours to go to. However, I think that I learnt how to make the difference between what I needed to get done, and what I wanted to do.  I learnt the value of taking a ‘mental health day’  as my friend puts it, and do nothing work/school related even though I did have more coffee chats to schedule, more thank you notes and emails to send.

5. We are family.

Throughout all of this, I have understood why Sternies call themselves family. High stress times are usually times where the strongest bonds are either made or broken. As Sternies, we have forged friendships in this last semester that will last us a lifetime. The MBA2s have been super supportive, helping us and guiding us as we maneuver this new unknown. I was privileged to attend the wedding of one of my newest friends, and I felt like I had known her my whole life. If so much can happen in a semester, how much more can we accomplish in 2 years? I cannot wait to see what will happen next year.

Happy Holidays!

Michaella

When I entered Stern, I wanted to find a way to balance my business education with my interest in the social sector. After a lot of thought, I decided that I would focus my academic and professional efforts on traditional business while focusing the rest of my energy on socially-focused extracurricular activities. Luckily Stern offers a wide array of options for students interested in shaping their business education for a social mission:

Social Enterprise Association: I am a board member of the Social Enterprise Association (SEA), one of Stern’s largest student clubs. SEA is incredibly active on campus and offers students programming ranging from career development and networking opportunities to spring break treks and social events. SEA’s career development programming covers impact investing, corporate social responsibility, energy/sustainability, international development, social impact consulting, and education. SEA brings professionals in these industries to campus to share their experience and tips for recruiting. On the social side, SEA co-hosts Think Social, Drink Local with the Luxury-Retail Club. TSDL is part-fashion show, part-party, and part-fundraiser and is one of the best social events of the year.

One of my favorite SEA events is the annual NYU Social Innovation Symposium (SIS), a conference co-hosted by Stern, the Wagner School of Public Policy, and the School of Law. I am the chair of the SIS planning committee this year and am working with students from the three schools to plan the event. The conference highlights the potential of business, policy and law to create social change, and is attended by 300 business professionals, social enterprise practitioners, scholars, and students each year.

Board Fellows: I was looking forward to serving as a Board Fellow before I even applied to Stern. Board Fellows places second-year MBAs with a non-profit for the academic year. With the support of an advisor, students conduct a strategic project with the Board of Directors of the non-profit. I am working with one of my classmates to help a small non-profit expand and professionalize their board to support their growth and ambitious goals. Over the course of the year, we will be conducting a skills audit of their current board members, suggesting prototypes for new board members, and developing a recruitment and on-boarding process for new members. We meet each month with our advisor, who has over 15 years of experience in non-profit governance, to discuss our project. I would love to serve on the board of social enterprise after graduation so I’m hoping Board Fellows will be the perfect launching pad to board service.

I have found the social enterprise resources at Stern to be the perfect complement to my business training. As I mentioned in my first blog post, I also participated in the Stern Consulting Corps to help West Elm fulfill their Clinton Global Initiative Commitment. My classmates have also taken advantage of the Social Impact Internship Fund and the Social Innovation & Impact class offerings.

 

As you may know, all Stern clubs are student led.  This is a great because it not only gives the student body a say in how to set up clubs and organizations to best serve their needs, but it also gives students the ability to practice their leadership skills and develop their abilities as managers.

As an MBA1 you can apply for roles on student club boards — for example, last year, I applied and was selected to be AVP of Alumni Relations for EMTA–our Entertainment, Media, and Technology club.  Throughout the year I was trained to take over the club leadership position as Vice President of Alumni Events in my second year.

So this year I have been sitting on the board, enjoying the experience, and have recently hired my own “AVP” who I will, in turn, train to take over the spot for me next year when I graduate.  One of my primary goals as Vice President of Alumni Events this year (along with the help of the AVP) was to organize and facilitate the “EMTA Alumni Roundtable.”

This event, which happened just over a week ago, invites Stern alumni who are working in the EMT space to come back to campus, meet informally with students hoping to work in these industries, and have a drink and snacks on Stern.  We had alumni from some really impressive companies this year: Facebook, Spotify, NBC, Verizon, WWE, U.S. Tennis Association, The New York Times, and many others.

It was definitely a lot to coordinate, as our Alumni have busy schedules, but it all turned out to be a remarkably successful event.  As you can see from the picture above, alumni spoke to students at small tables for 20-30 minutes, in three rounds, then everyone split up for some general networking around the open bar.

The feedback has all been very positive! Hopefully this will lead to some of our MBA1s getting an internship, or at least getting some really positive and productive networking opportunities.

This is just one example of how the student leadership organizes club events.  Other events, like treks, speakers, conferences, et al happen in very similar ways.   It’s definitely a fair amount of work but very rewarding when it all goes off without a hitch…

 

 

 

 

Before enrolling at Stern, I worked for a US Senator and a social enterprise in South Africa. Unlike some of my classmates, there is no mention of profit, sales targets, cost analysis, or other private sector lingo on my resume. Those words were replaced by phrases such as fundraising, proposal writing, and beneficiaries. Given my background, I am often asked how I made the transition into management consulting, and specifically, how I made that transition at Stern.

Stern has a multitude of resources to prepare students for a career in consulting. The most important resources for me were the Office of Career Development (OCD), the Management Consulting Association (MCA), and the Stern Consulting Corps (SCC). These entities all come into play at various points in the consulting preparation process: OCD connects students with prospective companies and facilitates the application and interview process; MCA prepares students for the case-based interview; and SCC readies students to work as consultants.

OCD: I attended all of the corporate presentations OCD facilitated with the main consulting firms. OCD also works with firms to plan events that allow students and the companies to get to know each better. Last fall, I attended events ranging from roundtable discussions and case competitions to smaller dinners and happy hours. I also asked my Career Counselors for help at every step of the application process. I discussed my recruiting strategy with them, asked for feedback on my resume and cover letter, and did mock behavioral interviews.

MCA: I took advantage of every program MCA had to offer! I participated in a six-week boot camp on casing, attended the casing workshops and speakers that MCA brought to campus, and mock cased with MBA 2’s and alums (facilitated by MCA). I found the Consulting Internship Preparation (CIP) program that MCA runs in partnership with Deloitte Consulting to be extremely helpful. I was paired with a Stern alum who currently works at Deloitte. She served as my Mentor and gave me invaluable feedback on my resume and cover letters.

SCC: After I secured my internship in consulting, I was a little panicked. How was I actually going to be a consultant? Luckily, I participated in the Stern Consulting Corps during the spring semester. SCC is a 1.5 credit course that mixes a hands-on consulting projects with classroom instruction. With a team of three other students, I worked with West Elm to conduct a landscape analysis of fair trade certifications. While we were working on the project, we had the support and guidance of our professor and teaching fellow. During our weekly class meeting, they taught us the fundamentals of consulting ranging from hypothesis development to constructing our final presentation. The course helped me get ready for the summer and gave me much more confidence that I could “do” consulting.

The semester is half way over…and I’m happy to report I’ve received and accepted an offer at The Topps Company, where I pursued my internship and had a phenomenal summer.  So now there’s time…time to take stock of where we are and where we are going.

It’s also time to pick classes for my final semester– which is always tricky as there are always plenty of options, many classes I want to take, and only 60 credits to fulfill (most classes are 3 credits, so an MBA turns out to be around 15 classes).  After much deliberation, I have decided to take the following classes:

-Pricing Strategy
-Consumer Neuroscience
-Business of Sports Marketing
-Marketing Planning & Strategy
-Financial Statement Analysis
-Corporate Finance

I’ve chosen a bit of a combination between marketing and quant-focused classes, which is good for me as I’m really trying to develop the mix of skills I’ll be using at Topps. What’s nice about returning to classwork after your internship/job offer is that you have more clarity on what courses you should take to develop the specific skills you’ll need once you graduate.

Additionally, I’m taking corporate finance because it’s an unofficial Stern “must take” — everyone says the class taught by Professor Damodaran (world-renown valuation guru) is one of the course highlights of their MBA.

Other than that I’m using the bit of extra time I have now (that recruiting is done) to catch up on school work, see old friends, attend Stern’s weekly “Beer Blast” more frequently, and continue with my part-time jobs on campus–where I am a tour guide and T.A. for a non-Stern Marketing Management class.  I’m trying to keep a good balance of business, work, and play.

It’s definitely enough to fill my days and even though there is more “time” with recruiting out of the way, there is somehow less time than ever before to do all the things I need and want to do.  But I suppose that’s the way it goes with time, your life sort of fills it up, regardless of how much you have … so you may as well enjoy the ride of “being busy.” That’s another macro-lesson of Business school by the way, BUSY IS GOOD, because in life, busy is just the way it goes.

Anyway, that’s enough philosophizing for now.  For one of my current classes–LEADERSHIP MODELS — we have to read a biography of any leader in ANY field or discipline.  I’ve chosen the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, transcendental meditation founder.  It’s amazing to be able to read such a “non-businessy” text for one of my classes, and apply the principles we are learning.  Reading about Yogi’s path to leadership is the biggest item on my agenda today, well — that and watch a lot of football.  You have to stay balanced, right?

M

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three more weeks of my internship to go!

Generally internships between your two years last for 10 weeks… some can go even longer.  For me, it was just ten–but I was fortunate enough to start very early (just after final exams).  I call this fortunate because now I am faced with wrapping my internship at the end of July… which means a whole month off before school starts in September.

To be honest, I haven’t made too many plans— I’m staying flexible to see where the wind blows me.  I also wouldn’t mind some relaxed NYC time, because during school and especially during the summer internship it can be hard to get out and explore the city as much as one would like.  So this may turn into more of a “staycation” in the end–a prospect I’m fine with.

As for the internship–it really has been great.  The amount that I’ve learned and the exposure my bosses have given me to the many facets of their business have been truly the best part; I am very grateful that Ive had such a resume-building, unique, and–yes, I’ll admit it–challenging summer.  Challenging as it was, I think I’ll be quite happy with the end product of my assignments, and definitely am confident in what I have managed to accomplish personally and professionally in just a few short weeks.

And then back to school!  Can’t believe its coming already.  A number of my classmates are emerging from their own internship bubbles and think we are one by one getting ourselves prepared for the next year of classes.  Should be a great one!

Hope all are well out there.

M

 

Hi Everyone! It’s been awhile since my last post and I figured I would use this time to answer a common question that I get: “what are the benefits of NYU’s location?” I could write 10,000 words on this topic, but when you browse the web it seems like everything is now written in list form! I can take a hint internet, so here are my top 5 reasons why Stern’s location in New York City (NYC) gives Stern students a major advantage as they pursue a great MBA experience:

1) Finding a Job

When choosing where to apply I made a list of all the companies I thought I would want to work for. What I found was that the companies were either headquartered near NYC (Pepsi, ESPN, Johson & Johnson) or had huge offices in NYC (Google, Facebook, Unilever). My first semester I recruited heavily for internships and all these companies came to campus for corporate presentations. Additionally, many companies worked with clubs to have more social events like happy hours and “day in the life” events where students travel to their offices and shadow an employee. NYU Stern is a cab or train ride away from so many companies that a majority of my conversations were face to face interactions. Since cultural fit is crucial to most companies, these face to face interactions were far more meaningful than a phone call could have been. Establishing these relationships yielded several internship offers and allowed me to accept Unilever’s because it was the best fit, not because of a lack of alternatives.

2) Conferences

This is really an offshoot of finding a job, but I feel as if conferences warrant their own section. If you are thinking about a career in luxury, retail, entertainment, advertising, technology, non-profits, or early stage startups, a major resource for you to network will be industry conferences. New York City is home to many of the top conferences in these industries and as a student you get a special rate. On top of these industry sponsored events, every club on campus throws fantastic conferences as well with C-Suite executives from Fortune 500 companies.

3) Clinical Faculty

Professors at NYU Stern fall into 2 buckets: adjunct professors whose full-time jobs are as NYU professors and clinical professors who spend their days as leaders of business who teach at night or on weekends. I found that one of my favorite benefits of Stern’s location was our ability to draw top clinical faculty to the school. They have plenty of money from their business success, so the reason they teach is because the love interacting with students. For instance my brand strategy class was taught by Scott Galloway. He founded Prophet brand consulting, founded the gift-giving website Red Envelope, and currently runs L2, a digital marketing think tank. He is an excellent resource who not only helps you look at branding in unique ways, but he is able to weave in current market trends because he’s meeting with people every day discussing their companies’ brand strategies. There are countless examples of phenomenal clinical professors and without our location in New York we simply could not draw in such top tier talent.

4) Guest Speakers

Here is a real life conversation I had with an alumni at the NYU Stern Info Session in Los Angeles before I applied:

Alumni: “Do you know which CEOs come to New York during the year?”

Me: (trying to sound smart) “CEOs of publicly traded companies?”

Alumni: “ALL of them”

This is obviously an exaggeration, but not as big an exaggeration as you may think. CEOs always seem to find themselves in NYC whether it’s for conferences, meetings with top partners, or just to visit a friend. In my Strategy class, we prepared a case about whether Peter Lewis, the founder and CEO of Progressive Insurance should enter a specific market in the 1990s. In class we were surprised when Peter Lewis (at that time Chairman of the Board and sadly now deceased) surprised us in class to talk about his decisions and do 45 minutes of Q&A. My first semester this year I saw Jeff Weiner (LinkedIn), Larry Fink (Blackrock), Dick Costolo (Twitter), and Kevin Byrnes (US Army 4-Star General). These were just a handful of speakers that I saw over my 2 years at Stern. A speaking engagement at Stern was not the primary reason these CEOs were in New York, but we were able to benefit from their wisdom and years of experience because of our proximity to their other engagements.

5) Experiential Learning Opportunities

With so many companies surrounding Stern there are many opportunities to take what you learn in the classroom and apply it outside of school. As a career switcher it was important for me to have actual marketing experience BEFORE my summer internship at Unilever. I chose to get this experience in the Stern Consulting Core, a school-run program that allows students to work on 12 week projects starting their second semester at Stern. My particular project was to assist with the launch of an e-commerce site and at the end of the 12 weeks my team had developed a customer segmentation and digital marketing plan for the company to drive quality site traffic.

The Stern Consulting Core is for course credit and is run by the school, but students can leverage clubs for experiential opportunities as well. The Graduate Marketing Association, Luxury and Retail Club, and the Entrepreneurs Exchange are just three of the clubs on campus with their own consulting opportunities. Students interested in luxury brands often use the Luxury and Retail Clubs long-running partnership with the CFDA to partner with talented designers to build their businesses. Hands-on programs like these provide outstanding building blocks for personal growth and are also excellent bullet points on a resume.

Finally, the location in NYC is perfect for students that want to gain experience by interning throughout the year. Many students who want to dive into an industry (and make a bit of money!) during the school year are able to find internships through the Office of Career Development and through industry clubs. If there is one thing I learned at school it’s the principal of supply vs. demand and part-time internships are definitely skew higher towards supply. With so many options students are able to choose internships with fantastic job descriptions at top companies rather than settling for an internship that may not be exactly what they are looking for.

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Although i can list many more reasons New York is fantastic (I could make a separate Top 10 list for social purposes) I will leave you with these five. Good luck with your applications and keep checking back for new posts!